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| Hobby Forum Index » Arts - Fine » "Painting Below Zero - Notes on a Life in Art"... |
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 Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:09 am |
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Guest
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(NY Times) - In his 1996 book, “True Colors: The Real Life of the Art
World” (Amazon.com: http://xrl.us/TrueColors ), Anthony Haden-Guest
wrote that the painter James Rosenquist possessed, most of the time, a
“preternaturally healthy glow, like a hand-colored photograph.” You
could say something similar about Mr. Rosenquist’s new memoir, which
is an unexpected treat — it’s a ruddy and humble book, lighted from
within by the author’s plainspoken, blue-collar charm.
Rosenquist came of age as a Pop artist in Manhattan during the 1960s,
alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. He knew everyone, and
seemed to be everywhere. He shared a studio building by the Lower
Manhattan waterfront with Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin; Jasper
Johns and Robert Rauschenberg painted nearby. He drank in the Cedar
Tavern with Willem de Kooning and LeRoi Jones.
“Painting Below Zero” (Amazon.com: http://xrl.us/PaintingZero ) might
easily have been, in other words, the kind of memoir that spills over
with acid-sketched action and incident, a compendium of art-world
gossip around the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. And, for sure, there’s a bit
of that stuff in here.
Rosenquist describes strange nights in Hollywood accompanying the
actor Dennis Hopper, who “prowled through the unlocked houses of
aspiring actors and actresses.” Rosenquist gave a party for Abbie
Hoffman’s future girlfriend during which people danced indoors between
lighted road flares. The Warhol star Ultra Violet cavorted topless on
Mr. Rosenquist’s front lawn in East Hampton one Sunday morning just as
church was letting out. He was not all work and no play.
“Painting Below Zero” is hardly a tell-all, however. Instead it’s a
modest but inviting coming-of-age story, a calm self-portrait by an
unusual kind of Pop artist and an unusual kind of man..
Continued: http://xrl.us/PaintingZero2 |
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